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Duke Wayne shot four films at Old Tucson from 1958 to 1970, more than at any other set while working as an independent performer, free of any contractual ties to a studio.

Duke passed away in 1979, the Old Tucson lot survived him by 16 years. High winds, cascading, glowing cinders, insufficient water, no sprinklers and bone dry wood, spelled doom for the 45 year old facility on the evening of April 25, 1995.

This view is on the north end of Old Tucson, looking south. The RR depot is on the right, the RR engine Reno (built in 1872) on the left.

The Reno Railroad Station had played host to James Caan, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Charlton Heston, Marie Osmond, Kurt Russell and Elizabeth Taylor, among others.

The venerable locomotive survived with some damage (which has only been cosmetically addressed), while all the buildings on this part of the lot were consumed (25 in all) including the sound stage.

Structures on the other end of the lo...

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...